Keith Ellison Calls Trump’s Blatant Racism A Danger To The American People

Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison said whether Donald Trump made the “shithole countries” comment in an Oval Office meeting doesn’t matter. What’s important is that this president has a long history of racism and the fact that these views are now living in the White House is endangering the country.

The Democratic congressman said, “We’ve all got to step up and deal with” Trump’s bigotry.

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Ellison said:

The point is that Donald Trump has a long history of racism. And whether he said shithole or shithouse, he has deprecated people and people of color, people who are Muslim people who are Mexican. He has done it for literally years. And so the real question for me is not house or hole. The question is what are we going to do about it. The chief executive of the United States, the commander in chief has racist ideas about America and this country, and the American people, all 320 million of us, better figure out what the do about it. Because if somebody is just some regular person who holds his attitudes, maybe it doesn’t make that much of a difference. But this guy is a commander in chief. He controls the largest military economy and surveillance in the world. And so his racism is dangerous to people. And we’ve all got to step up and deal with that.

While a bipartisan group of senators claims that Trump did, in fact, make the widely reported racist Oval Office comments last week, some Republicans have rushed to protect the president, saying his remarks are being “misrepresented” or that they “don’t recall” what he said.

But the argument over the infamous DACA meeting is missing the point that Trump has a long history of racism that he has taken with him into the White House. It’s not just harmless rhetoric anymore; it’s now being used to shape actual policy.

As Ellison said on Monday, the American people need to step up and combat the behavior of this hateful and dangerously incompetent commander-in-chief. That starts by removing GOP members of Congress who continue to bow to Trump and replacing them with Democrats who will hold the president accountable.

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.